| Dear Philippe, Athelstan, Mike, Pieman & Chillo,
Many thanks for your replies. To put my Alps question in context: Each year I and 3 or 4 mates do a biking trip - usually to Spain & ending in a couple of trackdays at Jerez or Catalunya etc.
These past trips have always been later in the year (October), and we have generally found the roads (France, Pyrenees, Spain) to be free of heavy traffic, and hotels en route to have plenty of vacancies.
Due to unpredictable work commitments and departure dates we have never normally pre-booked anything other than the trackdays themselves, prefering instead to 'wing it'; picking the more interesting roads (the twisty ones) with no fixed itinerary, but always managing to find a decent hotel at the end of each day.
This year, just for a change, we are planning to do two Monza trackdays on 21st & 22nd August, and in effect swopping the Pyrenees for the Alps ... which brings me back to the original question.
I've noted all the various roads you suggest and hopefully we'll have time to explore them all en route to Monza. One idea I had was to base ourselves at some Swiss resort or other for 2 or 3 nights and explore much of the Alps from there. It all sounds great fun unless ...... in August the alpine twisties are so jammed with holiday traffic or marshalled by over zealous policemen with radar guns that all meaningful motorbike fun becomes impossible. This was my concern.
The second concern was again related to the August holiday season - the difficultly in finding vacancies at any good hotels on spec (ie without pre-booking rooms well in advance).
Athelstan: I believe you mentioned you were Swiss or Switzerland based: what Swiss resort (picturesque, lively, good access to great roads etc) would you recommend for a 3 day stay? Looking at the map places like Cran Montana or Verbier seem obvious.
Thanks again for all the suggestions.
JH.  |